nettime's_hackumentarist on Tue, 2 Mar 2004 03:49:02 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> dox vs hax digest [phillips, geer] |
Re: <nettime> floss enforcement/compliance ed phillips <ed@cronos.net> Benjamin Geer <ben@socialtools.net> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 13:45:26 -0800 From: ed phillips <ed@cronos.net> Subject: Re: <nettime> floss enforcement/compliance Thanks again, Ben, But you are wrong here as far as the GPL is concerned and in my opinion as to the benefits of releasing a trivial hack. First of all, releasing a trivial hack is in no way compelled by the GPL. What may seem to be a very minor part of the GPL is in fact a big part of the reason why free software is so widely used. No one is compelled to release the specific uses they make of free software tools, unless they distribute the specific use to the general public. Therefore, your example is wrong in spirit and letter. Yes, I've heard these IBM fellows on numerous panels give the same kind of laughter producing schtick. But, what trivial hacks have you actually seen IBM release to the networks? On every single one of the free software projects that they have contributed to, they have spent considerable amounts of money and time documenting and peer reviewing their code before they release it. I would expect no less of them. To the government of Foobaruda, I would say, It is not necessary for you to release the specific uses that you make of free software to the public for whatever reason you have, whether it be because the code is not good enough or not generic enough to be of use by others, or even if you have some fantasy that there is something specific to what you are doing with this free software that you don't want the world to see. I would say to them, Use some of them money you have saved to pay someone to substantively contribute to a free software project, either through documentation or through the contribution of generic modifications, bugfixes, or toolsets. The key concept here is generic. If you don't yet have anything generic to contribute, get on a mailing list and offer some help. Edit some of the existing documentation. Post a useful idiom. But please don't just release code you were too lazy or too harried to review or to make generic enough to be of use to anyone else. As someone who is out here promoting and using free software in the actually existing networks in more than a merely academic way, this aspect of the GPL has been one of the most important. The GPL has allowed me to tell my clients, whether governmental or private, that their specific code is theirs in the sense that they are not compelled to release it to the general public but that none of the generic problems that I solve belong to them or can be considered their intellectual property, and that in fact generic tools and solutions should be contributed back to the community of users from which they have benefitted. We would never have convinced the large number of private and governmental users of free software that it made sense to them to use it if they were compelled to release any and all software that they develop for their own use. Nor would a flood of released rushed and half-baked hacks be very helpful to anyone. An important distinction needs to be made between a rush job hack and a well documented, generic tool. A rush-job hack gets the job done and in compiled form, gets the machine to do exactly what it needs to do. A well documented, generic tool is friendly to human consumption an in addition to getting the job done, it's source is readable and well designed. rush job hacks deserve to only be read by brave deep code divers willing to rewrite them; they need not be inflicted on the public. I'm not saying that a law should be passed disallowing the release of said trivial hacks. You are free to do as you please. Nonetheless, I think that users of free software need to begin to think differently about what it is they are developing and what of substance they can contribute back. One good document is worth a thousand trivial hacks. A generic tool is worth a thousand specific uses of it.... On Sun, Feb 29, 2004 at 11:36:05AM +0000, Benjamin Geer wrote: > ed phillips wrote: > > If you are the > > government of Extremadura and you need to release an application to > > all your far flung Linux servers that > > does foo and stores bar in a MySQL database, you are free to > > distribute this on all your computers without formally having to > > inflict the ugly, just good enough to get the job done hack on the > > rest of us. Nor do you have to pay MySQL 450 or whatever dollars per > > install of the application. > > Easy solution: release the source code with a big notice on it: 'This > code is crap; we're just releasing it to comply with the GPL.' :) If > they're not comfortable admitting that their code is crap, perhaps the > GPL will act as an incentive to write better code in the first place. <...> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 00:23:33 +0000 From: Benjamin Geer <ben@socialtools.net> Subject: Re: <nettime> floss enforcement/compliance ed phillips wrote: > First of all, > releasing a trivial hack is in no way compelled by the GPL. [snip] > No one is compelled > to release the specific uses they make of free software tools, unless > they distribute the specific use to the general public. I know; I wasn't arguing the contrary. I was suggesting that if the source code of non-trivial programs was published as a matter of course (regardless of what the GPL requires), this would in the main be beneficial, because it would help reduce the number of hacks and promote public ownership of knowledge. > Yes, I've heard these IBM fellows on numerous panels give the same > kind of laughter producing schtick. But, what trivial hacks have you > actually seen IBM release to the networks? That's precisely my point, and IBM's point. They seemed to be saying that their code quality had increased *because* they were developing free software. IBM has a reputation to protect. > But please don't just release code you were too lazy or too harried to > review or to make generic enough to be of use to anyone else. Fine. On the other hand, there are large, well-written applications, representing an immense amount of knowledge and problem-solving, which are never released outside the organisations that wrote them, and whose source code the GPL cannot therefore give us access to. I think it would be in the public interest for the source code of those applications to be released, too. > As someone who is out here promoting and using free software in the actually > existing networks in more than a merely academic way, this aspect of > the GPL has been one of the most important. The GPL has allowed me to > tell my clients, whether governmental or private, that their specific > code is theirs in the sense that they are not compelled to release it > to the general public but that none of the generic problems that I solve > belong to them or can be considered their intellectual property, and > that in fact generic tools and solutions should be contributed back to > the community of users from which they have benefitted. You can of course tell them that, but nothing stops them from developing high-quality generic tools without your help, and keeping that source code to themselves; that's what my employer does. This, I think, is a flaw in the system. A lot of companies these days are benefitting immensely from free software without contributing anything at all to its development. They do this either by using only BSD- or Apache-licensed free software, or by using free software as part of programs that they don't distribute; companies like Amazon, Yahoo and Google fall into the latter category. It's perhaps easier to see that citizens ought to be able to study source code developed by (or for) governments; this follows from the principle that we ought to be able to find out what our governments are doing, in order to hold them accountable. (See the recent controversy about electronic voting machines for an example of why.) In the case of software companies, it seems to me that when a program embodies a non-trivial amount of knowledge that isn't readily available elsewhere, the benefit to society of having access to that knowledge outweighs the benefit to a company's shareholders of being able to forbid access to it. > We would never have convinced the large number of private and > governmental users of free software that it made sense to them to use > it if they were compelled to release any and all software that they > develop for their own use. It is often difficult to persuade people that their personal gain is in conflict with the public interest. Perhaps we just need stronger forms of persuasion. Like laws. Ben - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net